


The Shape of Water is Stranger Than You Dreamt It

by LivingDeadLad



Category: Le Fantôme de l'Opéra | Phantom of the Opera & Related Fandoms, Phantom of the Opera - Lloyd Webber, The Shape of Water (2017)
Genre: 19th Century, Crossover, Freak Show, Hurt/Comfort, I can't believe this ship works, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, M/M, Monsterfucker, Physical Abuse, Sad monsters, Touch-Starved, Xenophilia, hot fishman, voicekink
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-20
Updated: 2020-06-20
Packaged: 2021-03-04 01:54:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,371
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24815674
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LivingDeadLad/pseuds/LivingDeadLad
Summary: Before he was the feared Phantom of the Opera Populaire, Erik was a caged oddity in a traveling circus. When a remarkable amphibious creature is captured and put on display, Erik is tasked with keeping it alive. He finds himself haunted by the creature's strange calls and begins to see in it a loneliness akin to his own.
Relationships: Erik/Fishman, Erik/The Asset, Phantom/Fishman, Phantom/The Asset
Comments: 8
Kudos: 25





	The Shape of Water is Stranger Than You Dreamt It

**Author's Note:**

  * For [coasterchild](https://archiveofourown.org/users/coasterchild/gifts).



> Set in the 19th century before the events of Phantom of the Opera. The creature here is not necessarily meant to be the same a the Asset, but perhaps, a European cousin. As such, I've taken some liberties and envisioned a creature with a bit more vocal range. How else is he to entice Erik's voice kink?
> 
> Explicit rating for smut to come in later chapters. I asked Coasterchild what classic monster they'd like to see the Phantom bone for their birthday. This was supposed to be a quick and dirty one shot, but I fell head over heals for these two lonely monster boys.

The walk across the midway, only fifty feet or so, was further than Erik had walked in weeks and his legs shook with each step. When he stumbled, the two carnies who had pulled him from his cage laughed. The unfiltered summer sunlight hurt his eyes and he could hear the gasps from passers by as they caught sight of his face. He lifted his arm to cover his deformity, shrank back, but rough hands shoved him forward across the street. He staggered forward toward the shadows of a nearby building, tripped over the uneven cobblestones like a broken marionette. One of the carnies grabbed his shoulders and pushed him over the threshold, into a building that seemed mercifully dark, but smelled of mud and fish. Inside, the circus master Monsieur Gullet was waiting impatiently, along with another man in stained patchwork suit. 

“This is your prodigy?” said the patchwork man, who removed his faded top hat to daub sweat from his brow. Erik had seen him before, barking orders to his own team of carnies and hawkers from a series of tents and stalls across the wharf. He and Monsieur Guillet had worked out some sort of arrangement to amicably share the docks and the punters who came to gawk at their exhibitions. Had Guillet sold Erik as a part of the bargain? His heart leapt with a glimmer of hope, not that this new master would be kind—he knew better than to expect kindness— but that he might see Erik’s atrophied state and underestimate him. It had been some time since Erik dared dreamed of escape— though revenge was never far from his mind. All he needed was one guard to be sloppy with his keys, one person to leave a length of cord, even a shoelace where he could reach it. His arms had not wasted away from inactivity the way his legs had. Laboring at his piano kept them nimble, and though there was no great strength in them, he did not need strength, only a well-tied knot and the weight of a body, his own if necessary.

“They say he used to be a master architect,” said Guillet. “He’s created countless wonders for us, illusions the likes of which the world has ever seen.”

“We already have our wonder,” said the patchwork man. “We just need something to keep it alive. Think he can do that?”

“He will if he knows what’s good for him,” said Guillet. “You’re to make an enclosure for Mr. Scarrif’s new oddity—a pool, you said?”

“Eventually. We have a tub that’ll do for now,” said Scarrif, “What we want is something to keep the watter fresh. The shit we pump up from the river’s foul as hell, and the damned creature’s got some kind of ‘sensitive constitution’. Didn’t think it would matter none, considering the mire he came from. We’ve been keeping it in that vat, but it don’t like it. Keeps crawling out, though in this heat, it’s skin goes dry and it starts wheezing like it don’t breath air. Stupid git. Must have a fish brain, whatever it is, but even a fish knows to stay in water. We put bars up around it for a while, but it would bash against them until it was concussed. Made a mess of a few of my boys too, when he first came here, but we keep it chained up good and by now the fight’s about gone out of ‘im.”

There was a hissing sound of a match as Scarrif lit a lantern and held it up toward the back of the room. There was a metal vat, something in which great quantities of material might once have been dyed, or else used for some other industrial purpose, and indeed, it smelled foul. Something had wedged it’s way between the vat and the wall and Erik saw what looked like a tail fin, or a flipper poking out from behind it.

“What am I meant to keep alive?” he asked, forcing himself to his feet. “Some sort of exotic amphibian? A type of lungfish?”

“See for yourself, freak.” said Scarrif. “I guarantee it’s like no amphibian you’ve seen.”

“That thing damages him, you’re paying me extra,” warned Guillet. “I don’t mind scratches, and a good kick or a lash motivates him same as anything else, but I’ll need his hands in working order for tonight’s performance.”

So he was not to be free of Guillet, Erik despaired. The circus master was simply hiring him out, and likely enough, to a man just as bereft of mercy as he. Erik could understand easily why this creature might beat itself against the bars of a cage, might find death outside of water preferable to whatever fate Scarrif had in store for it. Had he not raged just so when he had been captured, pulled at the bars that held him till his hands were blistered and torn? Had he not himself longed for death, forgone food for days on end until Guillet’s carnies held him down and force fed him? It might be merciful to allow this creature to die—but then that would only mean punishment for him. Guillet would leave his hands intact, oh yes, but the man was despicably creative with his punishments. Erik did not bother to ask what he would be paid should he succeed. It would, he imagined, be no more than he received for the little wonders and illusions he created for the circus— an extra meal, a bottle of cheep, sour wine with which to drink himself to sleep, a blanket to huddle under for the night, that would be torn away from him the moment a new audience arrived. At least while he worked, he would have a reprieve from the cruel stares of the punters and the wicked jests of the carnies and barkers. There were three men guarding the outside of the building, and the way they kept the crowds away from it’s boarded up windows had not gone unnoticed. Scarrif would want to keep his oddity a secret until such a time as he could make a proper spectacle of it’s reveal. He was a showman, and Erik too had once been a showman. A man like that, he could understand, perhaps even predict, bargain with, persuade.

“He’s got about eight feet of slack on his chain,” said Scarrif. “Long as you keep wide of ‘im you’ve got nothing to fear.”

Leaning against the wall, Erik made his way to the back. There was not one flipper poking out from behind the tub, but two, each attached to a thick limb, with smooth, frog-like skin. The thing squirmed at his approach, and tried to wedge itself further back, but the vat was too heavy to budge. It had a soft, cartilaginous ridge along it’s back like an underdeveloped dorsal fin, or the fronds on some tropical lizard. It’s head was wedged too far for him to see it’s face but where he almost expected to see a ventral or pectoral fin, there was an arm—not thin like a reptilian arm, but with joints and musculature that seemed almost human.

_And those legs…by God was this thing bipedal?_ It’s form was shockingly humanoid. It had gills that moved almost imperceptibly. Could this be some kind of missing link between the apes from which man evolved and the creatures of the sea? Erik kept that to himself. He doubted Scarrif had so much as heard of Darwin, let alone had any grasp of evolutionary theory.

“Come on, boy, it can’t be any more shocking than you are.”

“You said you found it in a mire?” said Erik.

“The man who sold it to me did,” said Scarrif, “Swamp flooded after a storm. Thing might have been washed closer to civilization with the floodwaters.”

“You’re sure a swamp?” said Erik, “Not a marsh? Not brackish water?”

“I suppose that would matter,” said Scarrif. “Yes, I believe it was a marsh.”

“The water here may not be brackish enough, and even if it wasn’t this river’s practically a sewer. Have your men drain the tub, scrub it clean. I want well water hauled here, until I can create a filter for the pumps, and ascertain the river’s salinity.”

“You better not let him put on airs like this,” said Guillet, “ordering people about like the Shah of Persia himself. It’s gonna take me weeks to put him back in his place.”

“If your freak delivers, I’ll bow down and call ‘him majesty’ myself,” said Scarrif.

“Do what you will, but whatever you do, don’t let him near any rope. You won’t live long enough to regret it if you do.”

He held out his hand into which Scarrif grudgingly pressed a pile of bills. Guillet counted them twice, then left.

“You’re all to do what he says,” he told his carnies. “Don’t let him leave this building, don’t let him out of your sight or it’ll be out of your wages, but otherwise he’s the boss in here. For what I paid for it, this thing’s worth more than your hides, you hear?”

“Wet cloth,” said Erik, his voice growing stronger, a hint of the arrogance he had once possessed before his capture floating to the surface. It would seem Guillet had not been as successful at beating it out of him as he thought. “blankets or linens, whatever you have on hand—and that must be well water too. Then we must make an environment as close to that of marshland as we can. The balance within such an aquarium is precarious, and no one factor can exist without another. We will need fish, to start with, carp if possible, or herring or some other hearty species that can tolerate the shock of a main-made environment.”

“The thing will eat dead fish as well as it will live,” said Scarrif.

“But the fish will condition the water. Believe me, it is necessary. And when the carp are established, we will add some sort of bottom-feeder to cleanse the pond of algae, and cultivate some aquatic vegetation. All of that will be within the pool. Outside of it, we will build a primary pond, at an elevation. Fish and must be kept in there too, perhaps mussels or oysters which will assist in purifying it. The watter will trickle down through a series of pipes filled with earth, charcoal, and fine mesh to remove the filth of the river.”

“Where did a sideshow act learn all of this?”

“From the gardener to the Shah of Persia,” Erik said. He braced himself. Scarrif could punish his insolence. The man wore a billy club at his hip, concealed by his patchwork coat and Erik had no doubt he would use it if provoked. But his tenure here, his brief refuge from the unending humiliation of his cage, depended on Scarrif accepting his authority on the subject. He glanced down again at the huddled creature behind the tank, pressing itself where it could not be seen. How often had Erik huddled behind the bench of his piano until driven out by the lashes of a whip, covered his face from the gawking crowd only to be dragged out, arms held behind his back, for them to gaze at? Did this poor creature know the hell that it would be dragged into? A hell that he was now helping to build?

Scarrif seemed content with that answer, and left to attend other matters.

This was indeed a challenge worthy of Erik’s skills, the first time in years someone had treated him like more than a caged animal, but that position was precarious. He could see the disdain in the eyes of the carny tasked with draining the vat of feted water. Erik flinched as he walked by, and turned his back to the man so as to hide his face. When they bought the wet sheets he had asked for, he tore off a piece and bound it at an angle over his face. It was cold, and reduced his vision to only one eye, but he felt something more than naked for the first time in years. The relief lasted but a moment until a wave of warm, muddy water hit him in the back. He turned and saw the carny laughing as he raised the barrel he had been using to drain the pond high and slammed it into Erik, knocking the wind from his chest and sending him sprawling to the ground. The man kicked him in the side, then pressed the corner of the barrel into the back of his edge, the metal ring at the base cutting into the back of his neck.

“Guillet says we only has to be careful of your hands, freak” said the carny. “Remember that next time you feel like giving orders.”   
The more Erik struggled the more the barrel cut into the back of his neck. He bit back a strangled cry, hands clenched in shaking fists. He knew what the man wanted to hear, but the words tasted like bile. He wanted to fight back, to wrap his hands around this man’s throat, but he was pinned, prone. The only thing that stood in the way of this carny crushing his head was the price he would undoubtedly have to pay Guillet for the loss of his genius abomination. So instead Erik begged. He apologized and begged and he pleaded and even whimpered and whatever he might tell himself later, it was not an act.

It was the sound of scrambling behind the tub, and a gurgling cry of alarm and anger and alarm that startled the carny enough to ease up the pressure. The he whirled around and saw the amphibious creature had sat up from behind the metal tub.

“You shut the fuck up,” the carny shouted. He hurled the empty barrel and it struck the wall just shy of the creature’s head. 

Erik did not miss the fear in the man’s eyes. The creature crouched back down behind the tub, and the man took it in both hands and flipped it, flooding the room with what was left of the muddy water. When he let it fall aside with a clang, Erik could see the creature in full at last as it crawled into the corner. It’s movements were not like that of a something accustomed to moving on all fours. With a curse, the carny took the barrel and went to fill it from the well.  
Erik’s clothes were soaked and muddied and he cursed the man savagely once the door was closed.

There was a soft growl from the creature, huddled in the corner, startling Erik to his feet. The amphibian stared at him, it’s wide black eyes catching in the light of the lantern and the cracks of daylight that filtered through the wooden walls. Erik could see it’s reptilian skin was torn in places, and dull where it had begun to dry out. It reached out it’s had toward a puddle of on the floor, formed a cup with it’s webbed fingers, and scooped up muddy water, drizzling it on the dried skin on it’s shoulders. It’s hands shook.

Erik remembered the wet sheets. Even an amphibious creature who could breathe outside the water needed to keep their skin moist, and he suspected that the men charged with bringing fresh water would be in no hurry about it. He crawled over to the sheets, which were now somewhat muddied themselves and cursed his legs for their weakness as he forced himself to stand again Even if the men guarding him left an opening for escape, he knew he would not be able to get far as he was now.

  
_Nor will I be able to flee should this creature break free of it’s chains._ He tried to put the the thought out of his mind. As long as the creature lived, he had freedom from his cage. He had four closed walls between himself and the world’s derision. He must make keeping it alive his only thought. 

He realized the creature was watching him. There was something guarded about it’s expression, something calculating and Erik suspected for the first time that while he had been observing it, measuring it against the zoological books he had read in the time before he had been an animal, the creature was also observing him. It’s large black eyes, all pupil with a thin yellow ring around their edges, followed him. It’s chest rose and fell heavily and he was sure it was struggling to breathe. With nothing for the creature to hide behind, he could see gashes across it’s chest and arms. 

Erik was acutely attuned to notice symmetry, not just as an architect and artist, but as a one who knew that the horrible asymmetry of his own deformed face was the mark of Cain that cast him out from the company of man. Facial symmetry had become almost an obsession, and any imperfection in the visages of others was immediately apparent to him, no matter how small.

The creature’s face was swollen, asymmetrically, with bruises.

Erik moved toward it, cautiously, both from his own fear and to show he meant little harm. He was not accustomed to the ways of reassuring someone, for who had ever found his presence reassuring? He held out the wet sheet, and the creature pulled away, sounding a deep, guttural warning, growling, discordant, bass. 

“You will let me do this,” said Erik, his voice low, trying to summon the commanding presence he once possessed, but there was too much pleading in it. “You will let me do this, or you will die in this heat.” 

The creature stared at him hard, and Erik felt the sudden need to hide from that gaze, felt sure that this thing could see into him, beneath the cloth covering his deformed face, and even beyond that, into his soul. This creature knew, he thought, that he was a man who had killed, a man twisted with hate, whose only consolation in quiet moments was plotting the destruction of those who had wronged him, and not just that but those who have yet to wrong him, who dreamed of snuffing out the light in every eye that had ever stared at him in disgust. Why should any living creature take comfort in the presence of a man like that?

The amphibious creature reached for the sheet. Erik gave it to him and he wrapped himself in it. It winced for a moment, as the cloth pressed against the cuts and cracked skin, but it seemed to take some relief from it. It cooed three soft tones. D minor key, thought Erik absently. 

The creature lifted it’s hand to the back of it’s neck, gesturing to the same place where the barrel had cut into Erik’s neck. Erik touched his own wound and felt slick blood on his fingers. The creature reached out to him and he took a step back, but when he did, he noticed that what must have once been claws at the tips of the creature’s webbed fingers had been cut blunt, in some places past the quick and there were scabs there. 

“They have been as brutal to you as ever they have been to me,” Erik said. He crouched down, just outside the creature’s reach. “I hope you made them bleed for it.”  
The creature seemed to be listening, eyes on Erik’s face, watching his lips move, but with no sign of comprehension.

“I am like you,” Erik said. He pointed at the chains binding the creature, then held up his own hands to signify wrists bound. “A prisoner, like you.”

The creature again pointed to the back of his neck.

“Yes,” said Erik, “beaten like you, hated like you. They shall put you on display soon, for the world stare at, to mock and revile. Perhaps when they see you, my hideousness will not seem such a wonder. Perhaps you will even lure the crowds away and I will have a reprieve. I must make your enclosure a sight to behold, a beautiful and terrible cage worthy of you.”

The door opened, and Erik climbed to his feet as three men entered caring barrels of water. It was clean, as he had asked, and one of them even took the time to scour out the inside of the creature’s vat. When the man who had beaten him before entered, the creature snarled, and this time, rose to his feet, standing at his full hight, towering over even the tallest of them, growling an unsettling stream of discordant tones. He took a step forward, then another, unsteady but still ferocious.

“What did you do to him today, Drye?” asked one of the carnies, flipping the vat upright, ensuring it was between them and the creature.

“Nothing to him, not yet,” said the brute. “But it’s still early. Plenty of time to come up with something.”

Drye wore a bull whip at his hip and he placed a hand on it warningly. The creature stepped forward again, his chest heaving harder, muscles straining, and Erik knew this show of strength must be costing him dearly. The amphibious man put an arm out, and stood between Erik and the carnies as they emptied their barrels into the vat.

_It’s protecting me,_ Erik realized. _It can barely breathe, barely stand, but it chose to stand between them and me regardless._

“It still has it’s teeth, Drye. Don’t forget what happened to McKay.”

“Oh I ain’t forgot,” said Drye, and Erik was sure for a moment that he was going to uncoil the whip. But from outside the building, Scarrif barked at them to hurry before the midway opened for the day, so the carny left with the others to refill his barrels.

When the door slammed shut, the creature’s knees collapsed and it grabbed the side of the vat for support. He glanced up at Erik pitifully, and though he had seemed impossibly large, imposing, almost regal moments before, Erik knew just what an act that show of strength must have been.

“A foolish gesture, and they’ll make you pay for it later,” said Erik. He hesitated, his hand lingering inches from the creature’s arm, but it did not have the strength to get into the vat itself. No, not it, thought Erik, he? Had he become so callous as to see something living—no, some one--who could clearly reason, who could feel sympathy even for one such as himself, as an object? Whatever this creature was, it was more like him in it’s strange way than any human being he had ever met. 

Erik put his arm under the creature’s shoulder, let it lean against him. In that moment, it was not so strange to be touching the creature as it was to be holding anyone-- to have his arms around another body, to have that body pressed against his. Erik’s legs threatened to give out again, and he grunted with effort and heaved, and between the two of them, the creature was able to climb into the vat. The water was no more than a foot deep, and he slipped climbing over the side but Erik managed to keep him from falling. The creature lay down and submerged his body, his face lying under the surface, his gills expanding and contracting as he sucked in water. He still seemed in distress, and Erik would need to increase the salinity of the water soon. He hoped that he could do so gradually to ascertain the correct amount of salt, but he was starting to wonder if they would even have that kind of time.

The amphibious man was fascinating to behold, sinewy and angular, with strange blue markings that seemed to mimic the play of light on water—perhaps to act as camouflage in his natural environment. What a glorious thing that must be, to swim in the light, unseen by others, warm and weightless; to be safe even far from the shadows and darkness. Erik might have envied him, if the creature had not been captured despite of it. All the clever tricks of nature, all the strength in his sleek muscles, and this poor creature still found himself prisoner, a victim of the cruelty of mankind which sought to destroy and degrade all things it deemed unworthy.

Erik grew impatient as the creature’s breathing grew slower. Did they not understand the urgency? For all that Scarrif boasted of the creature’s value, he seemed in no hurry to ease it’s suffering. Suffocation was not the only threat— Erik had read of the affect fresh water could have on a fish not suited to it. It’s very cells would swell as they absorbed water, bloating until one by one they ruptured, tearing the body apart from within.

Thankfully, the men had not forgotten his orders, and when they returned with the next load of water, one of them brought salt from a pretzel vendor. Erik leapt up and ripped the box from his hands, and poured what seemed like a reasonable amount into the water, but it was no more than a guess. He had nothing to go by but taste and instinct, knowing that he could just as easily kill the creature by adding too much. There were too many unknowns! 

Slowly, the tank was filled. Someone went to the fish market and returned with live herring, mussels and winkles to add to the tank to begin the process of conditioning the water. Some died right away from the shock of transport and being thrown into the new tank, but most appeared to acclimate to the water. The creature was still weak, but his breathing had steadied. He continued to study Erik, and would assume a defensive posture when the carnies came in and out, though so long as they ignored the two freaks, he was content to stay submerged. He even took a few bites of the dead herring. That seemed a promising sign.

Food was brought for Erik as well, and it was better fare than Guillet usually provided— fish and chips from the same market, roasted nuts from one of Scarrif’s own vendors, and weak ale to wash it all down. He was provided with a chair which he set beside the tank, and a notebook into which he sketched his plans for the new enclosure. Scarrif gave his best guess as to the shape of the building’s foundation and it seemed they would be able to dig down a few feet and then build up the walls around it from there. They would make it look like a natural grotto, and perhaps they could display other aquatic wonders: some live in tanks, and some preserved, dried or stuffed. For all Scarrif’s shrewdness, Erik could see he had peaked the man’s interest. He began to formulate another plan, one to make Scarrif see how useful he would be to keep on. Such an aquarium could be a permanent fixture of the midway, and he would need someone to devise a way to keep the exhibits warm in the winter. If he could make Scarrif see his aquatic menagerie as a long-term investment, and that he himself was necessary to maintain it, the carnival boss would buy his freedom and set him up as it’s keeper.

The grotto would be grand enough to please a showman like Scarrif, but perhaps he could do something to make it bearable for the amphibious man.  
But what cage could truly be bearable? His work would keep the amphibious man alive, but it would also help to jail him. Erik had little choice. If he did not help willingly, he would only be forced to comply, the same way Guillet compelled him to perform each night. 

Erik talked to himself as he worked— and to the creature, though he was certain now the amphibian did not understand human speech. Sometimes he sang a wandering melody with no real tune and few real words. The amphibian lay at the bottom of the tank, eyes closed, resting, but he came to to the surface to listen to Erik sing. When Erik paused, he let out a keening sound, sorrowfully, longing and lonely as Erik’s own song had been.

“You can not speak, but even some animals are capable of song. Do you chirp like a frog in the summertime? Or can you make complicated sounds, like whale song?”

The amphibious man tilted his head.

“Of course, you understand none of this.”

Then Erik had a thought. He sang out a single crisp, clear note; one he thought might be within the range of vocalizations the creature made. He held the note for a few seconds then gestured toward the creature. The amphibious man did not respond. He sang a few more notes, mournful, slow. The creature leaned in closer, entranced, until he was face to face with Erik. His strange, black eyes seemed surprised. When the last note died on his lips, Erik again gestured to the amphibian. And finally, the creature understood. He tilted his head back, and let out that keening sound, soft but clear, sweet. Erik sang another note, deeper, a quiet “ooh”. The creature could not match the vowel sound but when he sang back, he matched Erik’s pitch precisely. Then the creature made a sound at a new pitch, and Erik mirrored it. It was not communication exactly, but it was more than simple mimicry, Erik was sure of it.

“Marvelous,” he said.

The amphibious man reached out his hand and extended a webbed finger toward Erik’s lips, and made another sound, this time a sequence of notes, followed by a more rumbling, guttural sound. 

“I don’t understand,” said Erik, his breath catching. He could not look away from those captivating night-black eyes. Again he felt certain that this creature—this man was looking into him, that there was nothing he could conceal that this strange wonder would not learn. It was frightening, and yet, there was a part of Erik, beneath that terror, that wanted to be known. He wanted this creature to see him— not his weak and disfigured exterior but _him_. The creature’s hand stopped a hair’s breath from his mouth. 

It sang again those soft, mournful, lonely notes.

“Yes,” said Erik, “I think… yes. I do understand.”

Then the creature reached for the cloth he had tied across his face.

“No!” Erik slapped the webbed hand away. The creature pulled back, startled, hissing. The door flew open, and Erik was in part relieved at how quickly the guards had come to his defense. But he knew that the creature’s intent had not been violent, and when one of the guards pulled out a whip, he shouted for the man to stay his hand.

  
The creature retreated as far back into the water as he could.

Not long after that, Guillet and his own carnies came to claim him. The evening crowd was starting to gather as the heat of the day relented. Erik was, at least grateful that they let him cross the street before they held him down so Guillet could rip the cloth away from his face. Thus exposed, he was thrown back into his cage.

That night, he played loudly at first, an angry staccato, until the whip cracked against the bars and the crowd demanded some popular tune or another. He obliged but transposed the key each time so that even the merriest dance hall tune sounded disconcerting. Another crack of the whip, this time, through the bars, striking his ankle. Guillet was done with warnings. So Erik softened his playing, performed the songs the way audience wanted to hear. As the night wore on, as the crowds thinned, he let his hands wander, improvising. He began to play a sadder, more mournful tune, one that began to resemble the longing, lilting sound he head heard from the creature across the midway.


End file.
